The paper presents a new monitoring station DIAMIS for continuous precisious observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2
) and methane (CH
4
) mole fractions over the Yenisei Gulf, on the ...southwestern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula at the edge of the Dikson settlement. Here, we summarize technical details of the instrumental setup, give an overview of calibration and data processing algorithms, describe local environments of the study area, and analyze the seasonal footprint of the measurement station. Based on the observations in September 2018–February 2020, a comparative analysis of the atmospheric CO
2
and CH
4
annual variations in the polar belt (DIAMIS) and middle-taiga subzone (ZOTTO observatory) of near-Yenisei Siberia is presented.
Three terrestrial biosphere models (LPJ, Orchidee, Biome-BGC) were evaluated with respect to their ability to simulate large-scale climate related trends in gross primary production (GPP) across ...European forests. Simulated GPP and leaf area index (LAI) were compared with GPP estimates based on flux separated eddy covariance measurements of net ecosystem exchange and LAI measurements along a temperature gradient ranging from the boreal to the Mediterranean region. The three models capture qualitatively the pattern suggested by the site data: an increase in GPP from boreal to temperate and a subsequent decline from temperate to Mediterranean climates. The models consistently predict higher GPP for boreal and lower GPP for Mediterranean forests. Based on a decomposition of GPP into absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (APAR) and radiation use efficiency (RUE), the overestimation of GPP for the boreal coniferous forests appears to be primarily related to too high simulated LAI - and thus light absorption (APAR) – rather than too high radiation use efficiency. We cannot attribute the tendency of the models to underestimate GPP in the water limited region to model structural deficiencies with confidence. A likely dry bias of the input meteorological data in southern Europe may create this pattern. On average, the models compare similarly well to the site GPP data (RMSE of ~30% or 420 gC/m2/yr) but differences are apparent for different ecosystem types. In terms of absolute values, we find the agreement between site based GPP estimates and simulations acceptable when we consider uncertainties about the accuracy in model drivers, a potential representation bias of the eddy covariance sites, and uncertainties related to the method of deriving GPP from eddy covariance measurements data. Continental to global data-model comparison studies should be fostered in the future since they are necessary to identify consistent model bias along environmental gradients.
The global geographic distribution of biodiversity and biomes is determined by species-specific physiological tolerances to climatic constraints. Current vegetation models employ empirical ...bioclimatic relationships to predict present-day vegetation patterns and to forecast biodiversity changes and biome shifts under climatic change. In this paper, we consider trade-offs in plant functioning and their responses under climatic changes to forecast and explain changes in plant functional richness and shifts in biome geographic distributions. The Jena Diversity model (JeDi) simulates plant survival according to essential plant functional trade-offs, including ecophysiological processes such as water uptake, photosynthesis, allocation, reproduction and phenology. We use JeDi to quantify changes in plant functional richness and biome shifts between present-day and a range of possible future climates from two SRES emission scenarios (A2 and B1) and seven global climate models using metrics of plant functional richness and functional identity. Our results show (i) a significant loss of plant functional richness in the tropics, (ii) an increase in plant functional richness at mid and high latitudes, and (iii) a pole-ward shift of biomes. While these results are consistent with the findings of empirical approaches, we are able to explain them in terms of the plant functional trade-offs involved in the allocation, metabolic and reproduction strategies of plants. We conclude that general aspects of plant physiological tolerances can be derived from functional trade-offs, which may provide a useful process- and trait-based alternative to bioclimatic relationships. Such a mechanistic approach may be particularly relevant when addressing vegetation responses to climatic changes that encounter novel combinations of climate parameters that do not exist under contemporary climate.
Climate extremes are on the rise. Impacts of extreme climate and weather events on ecosystem services and ultimately human well‐being can be partially attenuated by the organismic, structural, and ...functional diversity of the affected land surface. However, the ongoing transformation of terrestrial ecosystems through intensified exploitation and management may put this buffering capacity at risk. Here, we summarize the evidence that reductions in biodiversity can destabilize the functioning of ecosystems facing climate extremes. We then explore if impaired ecosystem functioning could, in turn, exacerbate climate extremes. We argue that only a comprehensive approach, incorporating both ecological and hydrometeorological perspectives, enables us to understand and predict the entire feedback system between altered biodiversity and climate extremes. This ambition, however, requires a reformulation of current research priorities to emphasize the bidirectional effects that link ecology and atmospheric processes.
Plain Language Summary
Climate extremes are increasing and impacting both nature and people. We hypothesize that intact ecosystems, particularly via their biodiversity, can mitigate the impacts of climate extremes. What happens when biodiversity decreases? Could this loss make the effects of climate extremes even worse or change how these events occur? We explore these two questions and summarize the current state of knowledge. We conclude that targeted research efforts at the interface of ecology and atmospheric sciences are needed to answer these questions conclusively.
Key Points
Mounting evidence suggests that an ecosystem's capacity to buffer the impacts of climate extremes depends on its biodiversity
Numerous mechanisms suggest that a reduction in biodiversity could exacerbate climate extremes
A series of research gaps need to be addressed to understand the full feedback between biodiversity change and climate extremes
Atmospheric monitoring of high northern latitudes (above 40°N) has shown an enhanced seasonal cycle of carbon dioxide (CO₂) since the 1960s, but the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully ...understood. The much stronger increase in high latitudes relative to low ones suggests that northern ecosystems are experiencing large changes in vegetation and carbon cycle dynamics. We found that the latitudinal gradient of the increasing CO₂ amplitude is mainly driven by positive trends in photosynthetic carbon uptake caused by recent climate change and mediated by changing vegetation cover in northern ecosystems. Our results underscore the importance of climate–vegetation–carbon cycle feedbacks at high latitudes; moreover, they indicate that in recent decades, photosynthetic carbon uptake has reacted much more strongly to warming than have carbon release processes.
The difference is found at the marginsThe terrestrial biosphere absorbs about a quarter of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but the amount that they take up varies from year to year. Why? ...Combining models and observations, Ahlstrom et al. found that marginal ecosystems-semiarid savannas and low-latitude shrublands-are responsible for most of the variability. Biological productivity in these semiarid regions is water-limited and strongly associated with variations in precipitation, unlike wetter tropical areas. Understanding carbon uptake by these marginal lands may help to improve predictions of variations in the global carbon cycle.Science, this issue p. 895 The growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations since industrialization is characterized by large interannual variability, mostly resulting from variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems (typically termed carbon sink). However, the contributions of regional ecosystems to that variability are not well known. Using an ensemble of ecosystem and land-surface models and an empirical observation-based product of global gross primary production, we show that the mean sink, trend, and interannual variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems are dominated by distinct biogeographic regions. Whereas the mean sink is dominated by highly productive lands (mainly tropical forests), the trend and interannual variability of the sink are dominated by semi-arid ecosystems whose carbon balance is strongly associated with circulation-driven variations in both precipitation and temperature.
The carbon cycle strongly interacts with the nitrogen cycle. Several observations show that the effects of global change on primary production and carbon storage in plant biomass and soils are ...partially controlled by N availability. Nevertheless, only a small number of terrestrial biosphere models represent explicitly the nitrogen cycle, despite its importance on the carbon cycle and on climate. These models are difficult to evaluate at large spatiotemporal scales because of the scarcity of data at the global scale over a long time period. In this study, we benchmark the capacity of the O–CN global terrestrial biosphere model to reproduce temporal changes in leaf area index (LAI) at the global scale observed by NOAA_AVHRR satellites over the period 1982–2002. Using a satellite LAI product based on the normalized difference vegetation index of global inventory monitoring and modelling studies dataset, we estimate the long-term trend of LAI and we compare it with the results from the terrestrial biosphere models, either with (O–CN) or without (O–C) a dynamic nitrogen cycle coupled to the carbon–water-energy cycles. In boreal and temperate regions, including a dynamic N cycle (O–CN) improved the fit between observed and modeled temporal changes in LAI. In contrast, in the tropics, simulated LAI from the model without the dynamic N cycle (O–C) better matched observed changes in LAI over time. Despite differential regional trends, the satellite estimate suggests an increase in the global average LAI during 1982–2002 by 0.0020 m
2
m
−2
y
−1
. Both versions of the model substantially overestimated the rate of change in LAI over time (0.0065 m
2
m
−2
y
−1
for O–C and 0.0057 m
2
m
−2
y
−1
for O–CN), suggesting that some additional limitation mechanisms are missing in the model. We also estimated the relative importance of climate, CO
2
and N deposition as potential drivers of the temporal changes in LAI. We found that recent climate change better explained temporal changes in LAI when the dynamic N cycle was included in the model (higher ranked fit for O–CN vs. O–C). Using the O–C configuration to estimate the direct effect of climate on LAI, we quantified the importance of climate-N cycle feedbacks in explaining the LAI response. We found that the warming-induced release of N from soil organic matter decomposition explains 17.5 % of the global trend in LAI over time, however, reaching up to 40.9 % explained variance in the boreal zone, which is a more important contribution than increasing anthropogenic nitrogen deposition. Our analysis supports a strong connection between warming, N cycling, and vegetation productivity. These findings underscore the importance of including N cycling in global-scale models of vegetation response to environmental change.
Globally, terrestrial ecosystems have absorbed about 30% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions over the period 2000-2007 and inter-hemispheric gradients indicate that a significant fraction of ...terrestrial carbon sequestration must be north of the Equator. We present a compilation of the CO2 , CO, CH4 and N2 O balances of Europe following a dual constraint approach in which (1) a land-based balance derived mainly from ecosystem carbon inventories and (2) a land-based balance derived from flux measurements are compared to (3) the atmospheric data-based balance derived from inversions constrained by measurements of atmospheric GHG (greenhouse gas) concentrations. Good agreement between the GHG balances based on fluxes (1294 ± 545 Tg C in CO2 -eq yr-1 ), inventories (1299 ± 200 Tg C in CO2 -eq yr-1 ) and inversions (1210 ± 405 Tg C in CO2 -eq yr-1 ) increases our confidence that the processes underlying the European GHG budget are well understood and reasonably sampled. However, the uncertainty remains large and largely lacks formal estimates. Given that European net land to atmosphere exchanges are determined by a few dominant fluxes, the uncertainty of these key components needs to be formally estimated before efforts could be made to reduce the overall uncertainty. The net land-to-atmosphere flux is a net source for CO2 , CO, CH4 and N2 O, because the anthropogenic emissions by far exceed the biogenic sink strength. The dual-constraint approach confirmed that the European biogenic sink removes as much as 205 ± 72 Tg C yr-1 from fossil fuel burning from the atmosphere. However, This C is being sequestered in both terrestrial and inland aquatic ecosystems. If the C-cost for ecosystem management is taken into account, the net uptake of ecosystems is estimated to decrease by 45% but still indicates substantial C-sequestration. However, when the balance is extended from CO2 towards the main GHGs, C-uptake by terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is offset by emissions of non-CO2 GHGs. As such, the European ecosystems are unlikely to contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change.
A widespread decrease of the topsoil carbon content was observed over England and Wales during the period 1978-2003 in the National Soil Inventory (NSI), amounting to a carbon loss of 4.44 Tg yr ...super(-1) over 141 550 km super(2). Subsequent modelling studies have shown that changes in temperature and precipitation could only account for a small part of the observed decrease, and therefore that changes in land use and management and resulting changes in heterotrophic respiration or net primary productivity were the main causes. So far, all the models used to reproduce the NSI data have not accounted for plant-soil interactions and have only been soil carbon models with carbon inputs forced by data. Here, we use three different versions of a process-based coupled soil-vegetation model called ORCHIDEE (Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems), in order to separate the effect of trends in soil carbon input from soil carbon mineralization induced by climate trends over 1978-2003. The first version of the model (ORCHIDEE-AR5), used for IPCC-AR5 CMIP5 Earth System simulations, is based on three soil carbon pools defined with first-order decomposition kinetics, as in the CENTURY model. The second version (ORCHIDEE-AR5-PRIM) built for this study includes a relationship between litter carbon and decomposition rates, to reproduce a priming effect on decomposition. The last version (O-CN) takes into account N-related processes. Soil carbon decomposition in O-CN is based on CENTURY, but adds N limitations on litter decomposition. We performed regional gridded simulations with these three versions of the ORCHIDEE model over England and Wales. None of the three model versions was able to reproduce the observed NSI soil carbon trend. This suggests either that climate change is not the main driver for observed soil carbon losses or that the ORCHIDEE model even with priming or N effects on decomposition lacks the basic mechanisms to explain soil carbon change in response to climate, which would raise a caution flag about the ability of this type of model to project soil carbon changes in response to future warming. A third possible explanation could be that the NSI measurements made on the topsoil are not representative of the total soil carbon losses integrated over the entire soil depth, and thus cannot be compared with the model output.
The response of the terrestrial net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 to climate variations and trends may crucially determine the future climate trajectory. Here we directly quantify this response on ...inter-annual timescales by building a linear regression of inter-annual NEE anomalies against observed air temperature anomalies into an atmospheric inverse calculation based on long-term atmospheric CO2 observations. This allows us to estimate the sensitivity of NEE to inter-annual variations in temperature (seen as a climate proxy) resolved in space and with season. As this sensitivity comprises both direct temperature effects and the effects of other climate variables co-varying with temperature, we interpret it as “inter-annual climate sensitivity”. We find distinct seasonal patterns of this sensitivity in the northern extratropics that are consistent with the expected seasonal responses of photosynthesis, respiration, and fire. Within uncertainties, these sensitivity patterns are consistent with independent inferences from eddy covariance data. On large spatial scales, northern extratropical and tropical inter-annual NEE variations inferred from the NEE–T regression are very similar to the estimates of an atmospheric inversion with explicit inter-annual degrees of freedom. The results of this study offer a way to benchmark ecosystem process models in more detail than existing effective global climate sensitivities. The results can also be used to gap-fill or extrapolate observational records or to separate inter-annual variations from longer-term trends.
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